


Thou Canst Not Leave Thy Song

by joonscribble



Series: A Kind of Natural Phenomenon [2]
Category: Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 12:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joonscribble/pseuds/joonscribble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sixsmith’s present shelters his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thou Canst Not Leave Thy Song

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I most definitely do not own the characters Robert Frobisher or Rufus Sixsmith. They belong to David Mitchell. The ones that appear in this story are the versions brought to life by the Wachowski siblings & Tom Tykwer with the help of Ben Whishaw and James D'Arcy.
> 
> Again, the title is taken from a poem by Keats.

_1950 – London_  
  
  
“Not much of a view, is it?” John commented. He was pulling back the faded green drapes that had previously obscured the vision of the orange and blue awning of the chip shop across the road. “Why do you never take a room above the 3rd floor?”  
  
  
From his place by his opened suitcase, Sixsmith shrugged, his hands filled with flannel and wool. His first exposure to hotel rooms had been ones on the floors no higher than the 3rd. Since then it had felt like habit to simply ask for those.  
  
  
 “Not a fan of heights, I suppose,” he speculated, noncommittally. “I rather like the horizontal space instead.” The hotel suite was certainly that. It spread out to a bedroom where they current were, living area connected via an actual hallway and a rather spacious bathroom. When his brother had first seen the room, his eyes reflected a kind of surprise that Sixsmith supposed had been in his own gaze when he’d first seen the house he had rented back in California. Houses in America, in particular the West, seemed so intent on sprawling themselves out over the vast amount of space available.  
  
  
Letting the drapes fall back to their original position, John watched for a few beats as Sixsmith continued to unpack. Over the quiet sounds of clothes being slid into drawers, they could hear Anna and Megan in the living area talking, their words indistinct. “Are you sure you don’t mind, Rufus?” John asked.  
  
  
“Not in the least,” replied Sixsmith, meaning it. “I love spending time with Megan, you know that.”  
  
  
It was true. For a few years Sixsmith had regretted that he would never have children. But having Megan had dispelled all such regrets into the ether. He doubted he could ever have had a child of his own whom he would love more than his niece. Apparently the 6 year old in question had felt the same, begging and pleading her parents that she be allowed to stay with her uncle rather than go with them to visit Anna’s father who now lived out in Surrey.  
  
  
“We’ll pick her up no later than 7,” John continued to fret a little as they walked through the hallway. “She has her schoolwork so she shouldn’t bother you too much.”  
  
  
“Oh well, it’ll just be me bothering her then,” replied Sixsmith with a half smile as they entered the living area.  
  
  
His eyes fell on the two figures sitting by the coffee table. Both Anna and Megan were on the floor, their heads tilted toward each other, pouring over what looked like multiplication tables, half filled in. The scene was quaintly domestic and filled Sixsmith with a warm joy as well as a lingering fear of how fragile it all was. After the last 8 years that combined his work with the war, everything felt suddenly much more fragile.  
  
  
The melancholy that lay inside his throat like a lingering film of medicine abruptly alleviated as Megan lifted up her small head from where she was pondering her 12 times 11 and smiled at him as if he were her favorite person in the world.  
  
  
“Uncle Rufus! Can we have jam sandwiches for dinner?”

 

* * *

  
  
Jam sandwiches ended up being dessert instead. It was a compromise they’d negotiated with Sixsmith agreeing to teach Megan square roots if she agreed to consuming a dinner that consisted of more than fruit and sugar.  
  
  
They sat side by side in companionable silence on the floor, their backs against the sofa with their work spread out in front of them. Megan quickly scratched a series of numbers on her paper. Periodically Sixsmith looked up from his own notes on the lecture he’d have to give tomorrow and marveled at how far she was getting along with nary a question. But soon he lost himself to methods of plutonium extraction, jotting his critiques of the bismuth phosphate process.  
  
  
“What are these?” Megan suddenly asked. She was peering into Sixsmith’s open briefcase, her eyes clearly locked onto the small bundle of papers sitting on top of the plain beige folders. “They look old.”  
  
  
Reaching over, Sixsmith picked them up. “They’re very old,” he Sixsmith. “Much older than you,” he added, touching his finger to her small nose. Megan scrunched her face into a pleased smile. “They’re very old letters from a friend of mine.”  
  
  
“Is he a scientist too?” she inquired.  
  
  
Sixsmith laughed, amused at the idea of Frobisher even attempting to be something as rigidly disciplined as a scientist. “No, he was a composer. He wrote music.”  
  
  
Megan inched closer to study the addressed envelopes. “Like Benny Goodman?” Sixsmith could only imagine Frobisher’s reaction to such a comparison. Clearly John and his record collection were carrying on the Sixsmith tradition of never touching the classical.  
  
  
“Not quite. He wrote older music. Well, only one piece but very beautiful.”  
  
  
Sixsmith’s one recording of _The Cloud Atlas Sextet_ was currently ensconced back in California. He could see it clearly resting gently against a copy of Handel’s La Resurrezione.  
  
  
 _“At least you keep me in fine company, Sixsmith.”_  
  
  
“Why do you have them on your trip?”  
  
  
“I always carry them with me.”  
  
  
Unlike the letters, the recording of the Sextet he left at home. In the 20 years he had the record, he had only listened to it a handful of times. His reasons for doing so were the same as to why he had not hunted down additional copies of the Sextet or why he had let Frobisher travel so far from him all the those years ago. But the letters. The letters were his, the one part of his love that he had never been required to share with anyone else. So they would be with him wherever he went, a steady presence when all else was gone.  
  
  
“Why doesn’t he write to you anymore?” Megan asked.  
  
  
Sixsmith blinked at her, surprised. “Why do you think that?”  
  
  
“You look sad,” she answered.  
  
  
He smiled at her quick observation. “He died a long time ago.”  
  
  
“Oh.” She paused, clearly struggling with curiosity over being possibly rude. But the childish curiosity of hers won out as it often did. “How did he die?”  
  
  
Sixsmith sighed inwardly, trying to think if it were even possible to explain to someone as young as his niece the motivations behind his unstable, doomed Frobisher. “He was very sad,” Sixsmith offered, thinking on the last letter that was currently nestled at the top of the pile. “And I suppose he didn’t wish to be sad any longer.”  
  
  
Megan looked troubled. “Can people die from being too sad?” And for all her genius with numbers, she sounded very much her young, vulnerable age.  
   
  
“Very rare,” Sixsmith reassured her, letting her wriggle closer to his side as he put an arm around her shoulders. “He was very, very rare in that way.”

 

* * *

 

It was getting on half past six when John rang Sixsmith. The motor they’d driven to Surrey had broken down. They had already missed the last return train to London but promised to take the first one back in time to retrieve Megan before the conference.  
  
  
And so it was that Megan, looking dwarfed in one of Sixsmith’s shirts, curled up in the large bed as he tucked her in. There was no storybook to be had and Sixsmith doubted he knew of any traditional bedtime stories. So he made do with giving Megan a biography of Lise Meitner, whom he’d had the pleasure of meeting a few years back. His niece listened with rapt attention for a good half hour as Sixsmith embellished a little on how Meitner had escaped Germany to Sweden to be a famous scientist. But soon she dropped off, her face buried in the soft pillow.  
  
  
Sixsmith sat on the bed a little longer, sifting through Frobisher’s letters. Talking to Megan about the lost composer had been like pressing on a faded bruise. Painful but comforting in some ways. He could hardly believe that he would soon be turning 50 while Frobisher remained forever young and beautiful at 24. He tried to imagine Frobisher as he may be now but found he could not. Such a potential future as alien to Sixsmith as it had been to Frobisher who had often predicted he would not live to see 25.  
  
  
Carefully, Sixsmith folded away the letters and placed them on the nightstand. He glanced down at Megan who continued to breathe deeply in her sleep, her small body a warm weight against his side. He sat there for a minute longer before slipping off to the living area and sleep.

 

* * *

_“Sunt hic etiam, praemia laudi, sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangent,” read Frobisher, his tenor voice trumpeting the words over the hills they were currently overlooking from their place under the elm._   
  
  
_“Something involving tears?” Sixsmith hazarded._   
  
  
_He tilted his head back on Frobisher’s lap to look up at him as the other lightly thumped the leather bound book against Sixsmith’s chest. “You bring shame to Gresham’s School. The very foundation and stones.”_   
  
  
_“I don’t see any use for poetry in Latin,” Sixsmith defended, lazily plucking at the grass under his fingers._   
  
  
_“This from someone who once railed to the heavens at my inability to learn the symbols of the periodic table?”_   
  
  
_“That’s easy. There’s order to the table. Rules to guide you.”_   
  
  
_“I’m hopeless to being guided. Just as you are hopeless at following me in my libertine ways, Sixsmith.” If that was an insult, which Sixsmith did not take it as, Frobisher eased it with a gentle kiss._   
  
  
_“I’m a scientist,” Sixsmith replied, grinning with foolish happiness at the bright eyes gazing down at him. “My kind can’t survive without rules.”_

_"Then I suppose I shall have to tolerate the rules if they keep you with me.”_

* * *

 

Sixsmith jolted awake at the sound of a shrill alarm. For a second he wondered if the phone was ringing at some ungodly volume before he began coughing.  
  
  
Smoke. It was the fire alarm. The hotel was on fire.  
  
  
His back wrenched as he leapt off the sofa and ran for the bedroom. He was halfway down the hall when Megan, still in his oversized shirt and blanket around her shoulders, came barreling out. Even in the smoky haze, Sixsmith could see her eyes wide with terror.  
  
  
Barely breaking his run, he swept her up into his arms, blanket and all. He could feel her small hands tighten around the back of his collar, her heart hammering against his.  
  
  
“It’s alright,” he whispered as he quickly tested the front door before wrenching it open, his other hand securing her to him. “Just hold on tightly. It’s alright.”  
  
  
The corridor was dotted with other guests, blinking and shouting against the smoke that was rapidly filling the area. Against him, Megan jolted as she coughed in the oppressive air. Unconsciously he tightened his hold on her as he shouldered the door marked STAIRS on his left.  
  
  
It logically only took less than three minutes, given the speed with which Sixsmith was running and that they had only been on the 2nd floor. But it had felt like an eternity before Sixsmith found himself outside in the cold London air. Cold, but fresh compared to where they had just come from.  
  
  
In the distance he could hear the ringing of rescue coming as swarms of people, guests, hotel workers, and gawkers gathered on the street to watch a few windows of the building smash open as flames licked the ledges.  
  
  
Still in his thin pajamas, Sixsmith sat down on edge of the street, still hugging Megan to him. “Alright?” He pulled back enough to see Megan’s face, illuminated by a street lamp, remarkably clean and unmarked by any soot. “Megan?”  
  
  
She nodded, one hand still clutching Sixsmith’s shirt. Tears that had been welling up in the hallway of their room now fell, soaking his collar as she pressed her face against his neck.  
  
  
“Shhh, shhh…it’s alright. You’re alright,” he soothed, wrapping the blanket still mostly tucked around her more securely to ward off the cold night air.  
  
  
Another window burst open as the fire spread upward. With the heat of fire in front of him and the chill of the night at his back, Sixsmith realized he was sitting on a public street in only his pajamas, barefoot with nothing on his person. Not even his wallet. Or Frobisher’s letters.  
  
  
He sucked in one horrified breath and sat paralyzed at the growing inferno that was engulfing everything. Absolutely everything.  
  
  
Around him people shouted as bells rang above the roar of the fire. It all grew muted for Sixsmith who suddenly felt as if he was now underwater, far below, cold and lost.  
  
  
In his arms, Megan stirred and something sharp jabbed him at his throat.  
  
  
Startled, he surfaced and looked down and saw his niece pressing a bundle of letters against his chest, the corner of one envelop pressing against his skin. Even in the poor lighting, he could see the familiar handwriting sloping its way across the paper.  
  
  
“I put them in my shirt when I woke up,” she murmured. She sniffled back the last of her tears. “I don’t want you to get too sad and die.”

  
  
Swallowing against the pain in his throat, Sixsmith covered the small hand that was holding the letters with his own, hugging them both to his chest.

  
  
END


End file.
